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The biggest problem with Slender Man is that for large swathes not much happens, and when it does it’s rather gutless. Adam Graham, Detroit News:

It doesn’t add up to much more than a shoulder shrug. Perhaps that’s one way to kill off Slender Man: make his story so dull that no one cares.

For what should be a zippy 93-minute film, it sure drags. There is some minor entertainment value, and it’s certainly no worse than The Conjuring and its ilk that critics fell over each-other about. This movie did instruct me on a fantastic instrumental track from 1971, “Maggot Brain” by Funkadelic. But there’s not a lot going on here. Based on a web/urban legend, once again we see a failure to tap into readily available material, including its own poster.

I will say one thing: a movie like this makes you appreciate the genius of David Lynch all the more. Funkadelic and the beginning third raise Slender Man to 4/10.

You go into Hereditary thinking it’ll be some sort of wonderful all-out creepfest. There is a definite creepiness factor, but the film morphs into yet another fairly conventional haunted house/haunted spirit flick. For all of its careful consideration of factors such as visual design, Hereditary pays much less attention to presenting a strong compelling story.

Which is not to say it’s not compelling. Certainly not boring. But if you remove the miniatures, I doubt I’d recommend. An absent starting title for no reason doesn’t help. At least A24 didn’t revert back to the square frame on this one.

I’ve largely forgotten about this movie already, but in its immediate wake it did get under my skin a bit. So — a begrudging 7/10.

I’ll start with a side note. I saw the trailer for A Ghost Story about three times, I think two of which were at an AMC. And then the local AMCs collectively failed to ever show the film, or if they did it was for no more than a week or a day. When it was still showing in theaters outside my area, e.g. in LA, I went to one of the main AMCs to watch another film and was surprised to see a super-sized lobby cardboard poster display for the film. I inquired about it, and was told there were no plans to show the film.

A theater showing trailers and setting large promotional items on display for a movie seems only to make sense if said theater will at some point show the movie. But that’s indicative of numerous areas of mismanagement on the part of AMC. I went to a film lately and a couple of the seats had such a strong fecal odor I moved.

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I point out the AMC nonsense above because I felt like A Ghost Story, starring consummate actors Casey Affleck and Rooney Mara, was one of the more significant indies of the year, and given short shrift by the cinemas. Nonetheless, I was determined to watch it to consider among the films of 2017, so I did something that is rare for me these days: saw it at home.

The movie is intriguing, and certainly compelling — but falls short of providing that grand a-ha moment. In other words, I liked it despite a thin story. 7/10

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Note: This film is presented in a square (1.33:1) frame with rounded corners, for no particularly obvious or excellent reason. An affectation, perhaps, but in this case it does not distract from the movie — unlike in American Honey. I like a lot that A24 Films does, but the square frame trend I hope can be put to rest.

It often feels like a throwback to both classic ’80s Spielberg flicks and anthology shows like Amazing Stories, and to classic slasher-hackers. The cinematography and direction are refreshingly old-school. And while the occasionally scattershot film lacks cohesion, it makes amends with moments of lyric mirth and an intimacy among its characters normally lacking in such endeavors.

It, a.k.a. Stranger Thingswith a Clown, delivers a twinge of fear right at the beginning, with the clown in the gutter. That moment when we don’t know what will happen is very effective — until something does happen. And once it does, It traverses from scary to silly and never quite comes back. Or maybe put another way, from adult-scary to kid-scary. Once that edge is removed, It was not able to frighten me as much as it tried.

Then in the latter part of the film, the worst thing imaginable happens: It becomes draggy. Nonetheless, on the strength of its assets, It rises to a marginal 7/10.

“Scary” movies rarely do it for me, but Ouija: Origin of Evil looked promising. It features an appealing sixties setting, a reasonably compelling story for the genre, and a couple ‘boo’ moments that actually work. A marginal recommendation with the standard caveats. 6/10

On a related note: Why is it that zombies or ghosts are always at least 10 times stronger in zombie / ghost form than they ever were while living? Can anyone answer me that?

I think there’s a good movie out there — maybe I’ll have to write it — with ghosts behaving like ghosts. Passing through walls, haunting people’s dreams, that kind of thing. Something that could be truly frightening.

I figured somewhere on Rotten Tomatoes that I’d find a capsule I could swallow, but no such luck.

So, here’s mine: a terrific and unexpected first half, a let-down in the second half, and lots of great thematic elements and rich gothic atmosphere that’s never fully exploited. Crimson Peak deserved a story with ever-more eventful intrigue, but it falls way short — as if the writers became further and further bogged down in their own thick red mire. Still, there’s some enjoyment to be had, so a marginal recommendation. 6/10